Lessions in strength

Well, guys, the last few weeks could best be described as a completley emotional fucking train wreck for me. It all began a few weeks ago when I checked into Bassett Hospital in Cooperstown, NY on an early monday morning spent driving against the hordes of Orioles fans who had converged into town to pay respect to Cal Ripken Jr.'s enshrinement into the Baseball Hall of Fame. I had been dealing with excruciating back pains that had been plagueing me for weeks. It took just one scan to reveal the awful truth- I had been livinh with a crushed L2 vertebrae for the previous four weeks. I went infor a khyphoplasty to have thr spine repaired, and felt a lot better. The next week I had another round of chemotherapy, and felt like I was getting back on track.

For a while. While my back was beginning to recover, my left legs were beginning to experience pain. Nerve pain. And it was getting worse. So on thursday I checked back into the hospital to try and get my pain under control. Immediately I had an MRI of my spine, and found out that ther was something causing pressure that was eliminating the use of my hip flexors. Than the difficult questions began to arise. What was the cause, and how could it be remedied? Unfortunately, I was not having an easy time geting answers. Two different neurosurgeons giving me opposite opinions on the same procedure.

Being a summer weekend, the upstate docs were having a hard time communicating with my downstate docs. And when the finally managed to connect, the news that was given to me was quite morbid. One of my Doctors from NYC was surprised that I was still alive, and thought I had 3-6 months left to live. That really was like a Bruce Lee kick to the back of the skull. In the meantime, I was losing so much strength in my legs that I was unable to walk on my own. My lower body was virtually useless,and my upper body was getting weaker. Needless to say, I spent much of Sunday in tears, absolutely bawling.

Things picked up on Monday, however. Even though an MRI to my head revealed that there was now cancerous activity in my brain, there was still some hope. A new oncologist had suggested a form of chemotherapy in combination with radiation. This gave me a much needed breath of fresh air. I felt as if I had survived an emotional train wreck, and I had now been dragged from the wreckage and could walk away from the disaster of the last several days.

Today I had some pre-radition tests, and will begin chemo and radiation treatment tomorrow. I am finally feeling agood again, despite the fact that I can't walk on my own, and am battling a lot of pain. But I know that in the past I have found new strengths from within my inner being, and that I must dig deeper than before to find even more strength to get me through this. Which, of course, I will. Casious Clay was hit more than Sonny Listion, but Cassious still won the fight.

Nils